INDIANAPOLIS — A global glut of pork sent prices plummeting in the late 1990s and Indiana pork producers were hit especially hard.
"It's worse than it was in the Depression,” Garold Mennen told WRTV in February 1999. "With prices the way they are, it’s a very critical time to try to figure out how payments are going to be met this coming year. So yes, it’s a very rough time.”
But the fine folks behind those famous Golden Arches had a plan for all that pork: the McRib.
The love-it-or-hate-it McDonald’s sandwich was seen as a solution to help Indiana pork producers.
"It's a neighbor helping neighbor kind of thing,” McDonald’s owner/operator David Sleppy said. “The pork farmers are in our communities, we’re in they’re communities. It’s good to help each other out."
The move was also lauded by Indiana Lt. Governor Joe Kernan, who spoke to WRTV reporter Mary Schwager.
"It means additional demand for pork in the state of Indiana,” Kernan said. “It will also help other farmers who provide some of the grains that pork feeds on."
McDonald’s also passed on some of the pork profit back to its customers by lowering the price of the sandwich from $1.99 to $1.79.
Additionally, the company donated 10 cents from every sandwich sold in Indiana to a special scholarship fund for college students from pork producing families. Seventy-two students received $1,500 each.
